Note to Dems: not another dime from Goldy

I first watched the movie Alien in a center city Philadelphia theater, where, um, audience participation was more of an accepted part of the film-going culture than in my bland, white suburb, and during that horrific dinner table scene where the alien bursts through the chest of a writhing John Hurt, a fellow theatergoer relieved the tension by yelling at the screen: “Well, if you didn’t like the spaghetti, you could’ve just said so!”

That’s kinda my reaction to yesterday’s manufactured scandal over the now dead Workers Privacy Act. If they didn’t like the bill, they could’ve just said so, but state Democratic leaders certainly didn’t have to make such a big scene about it.

Passage of the Workers Privacy Act was one of labor’s top priorities during the current session, so when Gov. Chris Gregoire, Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown and House Speaker Frank Chopp issued a joint statement early yesterday morning announcing that they were shelving the bill due to “serious legal and ethical questions,” and forwarding a labor email over to the state patrol for further investigation, I feared I’d be covering a scandal of Blagojevichian proportions.

But after finally reading a leaked copy of the email, which turned out to be a communication between labor stakeholders summarizing a strategy conference call… well… not so much.

Union leaders would send a message to the State Democratic party and to the Truman and Roosevelt funds from the House and Senate that “not another dime from labor” until the Governor signs the Worker Privacy Act.

Um… that’s it? Angry constituents talking amongst themselves about withholding future contributions? That’s cause for a police investigation? Our state’s three top Dems douched the Washington State Labor Council for this? Are they out of their fucking minds?

You wanna prosecute a supporter for an idle threat, how about me: not another dime from Goldy until Gov. Gregoire signs an income tax. In fact, I’ll take it one step further: if the governor does sign an income tax, I promise to donate five dollars to every legislator who votes yes on the bill. There… now that’s crossing a line. I await my visit from the state patrol.

Sure, it may have been imprudent to use such blunt language in writing, and it was certainly stupid to have included a handful of legislators on the email list, but there is nothing unethical or illegal about threatening to withhold future contributions from a Democratic leadership that seems intent on screwing its most loyal supporters. Money follows votes—that’s how our system works—and if legislators don’t like it they could give up the inherent advantage of incumbency and move to a system of publicly financed elections.

Indeed, it’s only when votes follow money that we’ve really crossed a legal and ethical line, and as this incident once again proves, our Democratic leadership has absolutely no problem kicking their gift horse in the mouth… you know… at least when the horse belongs to labor or environmentalists or any other non-business constituency group.

No doubt the business lobby’s fake think tanks and talk radio hosts and other surrogates in our media establishment will get all high and mighty about the corrupt culture of Olympia and all that, and yet it is business that has honed extortion into their most potent and familiar political tool: “Cut these unemployment benefits, or we’ll leave town!” “Kill this bill, or we’ll leave town!” “Cut our taxes, or we’ll leave town!”

But a handful of unions threaten to turn off the tap if the Dems keep treating them like shit, and that’s unethical? That warrants calling the cops? It beggars the imagination.

No, we all know what happened here: the Democratic leadership hated this bill and were just itching for an excuse to kill it. The only question remaining is why they had to do it in such an outrageously ham-fisted manner?

Frank could have just refused to let the bill come to the floor for a vote; he’s good at that. Or the bill could have been allowed to die in one committee or another. Or the governor could have vetoed the bill, had it somehow managed to pass both houses. If they didn’t like the spaghetti, they could’ve just said so.

And if they really were concerned about the language or intent of the email, they could have expressed their displeasure privately, then killed the bill all the same, just as they had always intended to do. It was a stupid thing to put in writing, and the WSLC arguably deserved a tongue lashing in response.

But instead, they took this relatively innocuous line in an email that wasn’t even directed to legislators, and used that as grounds for publicly attacking unions, and instigating a police investigation? Why?

Are they that fearful of even the remotest appearance of impropriety that they’re willing to throw their most loyal supporters under the bus at the slightest provocation? Is this whole incident a calculated effort to prove to the media and business establishment that the party really is independent of labor? Or, have the state Dems really come to take labor money so for granted, that they’ve forgotten it isn’t their own, thus, in their own minds, making any suggestion of withholding future contributions the ethical equivalent of a reverse bribe… essentially a threat to steal money from Democratic coffers unless the bill is signed?

I dunno. But what I do know is that unless an apology for this bizarre overreaction is forthcoming, the unions in question might be better served by holding true to their threat. Not a dime for the house and senate Democratic committees… at least not while they remain under control of leaders who clearly don’t value labor’s support.

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Goldy,…luv ya…but you are all wet on this one.
The D’s got the majorities and all the power as result of being the party of ideas and not the party of scandal.
Even if you are correct that the D’s in both houses were more than happy to be handed an easy excuse, then it still was the actions of labor that killed the bill.

I think that leadership did not overreact. The bill was dead in a quick moment. Leadership had the prospect of a very public communication demanding a quid pro quo and in my view was right to protect the capacity of both houses and of the governor to proceed with other business without the loss of political capital which would result had the issue been swept under the rug until the other side made hay out of it.

1) Employers can force employees listen to the employer’s political and religious indoctrination, but employees can’t even refuse to listen much less make employers listen to the employees’ views on wages, benefits, and working conditions.

2) Bosses can deduct their private jets and 2-martini lunches as a “business expense,” but employees can’t even deduct their bus fare to work or a $4 ham sandwich.

3) Wage earners pay retail taxes, but capitalists get deep discounts on their tax rates. In addition, business owners get massive tax breaks and subsidies, while working stiffs get a measly few thousand in deductions. And capitalists literally get millions in tax exemptions when they give their estates to their kids, but the wage earner can deduct only $3,000 of his losses when Wall Street crooks steal his life savings.

Why the fuck would anyone work under a system like this? I don’t work! I can’t understand why anyone does.

“It’s been only 4 months since you wingnuts got the ass-whupping of your lives. Seems like ages, doesn’t it?” – Oswald Rabbit

Yeah. I’m still spitting fuzz from having my teeth kicked in by your furry little feet. But hey! No hard feelings. Thanks to you nullifying my vote, and thanks to you and Soros buying us the best president that big money can buy, I’m humming a happy tune and wearing shades in the Great Obama Bull Market Boom. Happy days are here again, although it took about 50 days too long.

Hot tips for Roger, GBS, & Cynical: Invest $2.97 in ‘Don’t Need a Gun’ by Billy Idol (nevermind the pussy lyrics; pump up the volume to nosebleed and savor the rattle & hum); ‘Sweet 16′ by Billy Idol; and ‘Lady Do or Die’ by Billy Idol … most pop songs have a break; Idol pop songs have a screech. The beauty part of ‘Do or Die’ is after the screech in the middle.

And, if you made an extra $.99 today, invest in ‘Summer Running’ by Billy Idol. Best advice you’ll get between now and Election Day 2012.

@10 I’m sure glad I loaded up on GE a couple days ago before the price shot up. I made $2,700 in the market today!

P.S., last time I checked it was rightwing nuts like Beck and Norris who are very publicly threatening to pick up guns and violently overthrow our elected government. Last time I checked, that’s TREASON.

Puddy has been very consistent here.
Puddy decries the slush fund union dues. Many of Puddy family are union members who disagree with union direction.
Puddy decries how union hack leaders party at a $400/night Miami Beach hotel and meet the Vice Preznit Gore behind closed doors while the rank and file are being laid off.
Puddy presented the SEIU blogs and how they wasted $65 Million on John Effin Kerry when that money could have enhanced their strike funds.
Puddy decries how union leadership are only for themselves. May I present Mark Blondin UAW Hack Leader.

“You forget one other ingredient…the orgy of military pork that took off midway through Reagan’s watch not only hastened the end of the Cold War, but managed to “trickle” enough cash into the economy to pull us out of the economic slump that had whole American families out on the street begging for the first time in my lifetime. Bush the Elder had to take the subsequent heat for grudgingly raising taxes to pay off what Lloyd Bentson referred to as all those ‘hot checks’.

“The end of our decades-long ideological/economic/proxy military war with the Commie Menace also turned out to be sort of a mixed blessing. Like it or not, we’ve been searching for a comparable source of a sense of national purpose ever since. One of the consequences has been the radical right’s willingness to supply a great volume of nonsense to fill the void.” -Fart

Yes, I forgot the orgy. But did you forget that our borrow-and-spend orgy or military spending began with … Democrat Jimmy Carter?

Gotta give Mr. Peanut credit. After scolding us about our ‘inordinate fear’ or the evil empire, Jimmy learned to fear the evil empire when it moved into Afghanistan, further threatening our petro lifeline that was almost severed by Carter’s inordinate obliviousness to the threat of Islamist terrorism in Iran.

(A little NoDak humor: How do North Dakotans spell ‘relief’? F-A-R-T. Have a nice day, Art.)

Goldy–
What a YEOMAN’S effort you made minimizing a very, very serious Pay-To-play scheme.
I’ll bet you got the Unions talking points and dreamed up this minimization piece.
Bad Try Goldy=No Sale.

Bender has just minimized the Unions.

Gregoire & the Dems now will be able to the right thing and cut State Employees jobs, wages & benefits to reflect the circumstances of those in the private sector that they are supposed to serve. They are no longer beholding to Bender.
Will they recognize this and do the right thing remains the question.

Hey Goldy you dumbass….you know damn well the media had this e-mail leaving Gregoire & Brown with no choice but to throw Bender under the bus.

Here is the $1mm Question—
How many times has Bender done this in the past? And has he been successful.
I would expect an in-depth investigation into Union political practices…PAST & present.

Let’s get this kind of politicking by the Unions who put the current Governor & Legislature in power….UNDER THE MICROSCOPE!
It’s about time.

Goldy @ 6:
Hell no. The only way this gets to be a crime is if Bloggo responded to the email by setting a price and then was handed an envelope at the signing party.

This is a political thing alone, as a result of the reaction and it ends here and if anything does the Dem leadership some good. Not for beating up on labor but for being very clean in so far as the ethics of this thing go.

One other thing worth pointing out is that climate has something to do with the reaction.
Bloggo, ill equipped lobbyist Brian and then this situation, suggest to me that this reaction was not an overreaction.

While I do not celebrate the death of this or Brian’s bill, I would have to say well played Dems, well played.

re 14: The jihadists were working for us at the time. Your analysis is vapid.

How’s that missile defense shield coming along. How did our increase in military spending affect the USSR. Did they increase their spending because Reagan increased ours, or were thay engaged in a war in Afghanistan that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

But you can point to an ephemeral so-called solution to an economic downturn AND the fall of the Soviet Union because Reagan brilliantly raised defense spending.

No one’s a communist here. Find someone here extolling Marx – you won’t find anyone. There was one guy who called himself “the socialist” – that was about it and he projected little to no Marxist rhetoric and the only ones who cared what he had to say were shithead right wingers.

Now progressive – we wear that proudly. All that means is muscular govenment action to solve urgent societal problems – you know like a depression?

Hell, Teddy Roosevelt believed in that.

HNMT, like Stupes, you’re full of the big stinky.

Is YLB really as thick as he seems in every post he posts? Is he really as humorless and clueless as Tlazeocritoral?

I mean, hasn’t YLB heard that we’re all socialists now? Newsweek says so. Didn’t he get my memo? Hasn’t he heard that George W. Bush is to the left of Hugo Chavez? Hugo Chavez says so.

Of course we’re not silly little communists any more. We’re new improved post-modern post-Marxist communists. We’re Euro socialists, and I’m out and I’m proud. So what’s YLB’s problem? Is he some kind of closeted self-hating pinkophobe?

YLB, my brother, we have 12-steppin’ for people like you. Get help before it’s too late, comrade. Slither out from the darkness, under your rock, and bask in the numinous glow of this bright bright sunshiney Obama day.

(And you really want to get me started on that commie pinko Theodore Roosevelt? Better back off, bitch. This is your last warning.)

The Ayatollah K was working for us? How did I miss that bit of news? Left-over CIA goons from the 1954 coup programmed him to call us the Great Satan? Wow. Maybe Carter was smarter than we thought, if he could pull off a stunt like that.

Mark Bowden, author of Guest of the Ayatollah, does demonstrate that the most vicious of the jihadist students who stole our embassy in Teheran were grads of US schools, so maybe there’s a there there in what you assert — without proof — in your jackass post.

(Big difference, by the way, between an assertion and an ‘analysis.’ Maybe you should learn what the difference is before weighing in again and wasting bandwidth.)

(1) A person is guilty of bribery if:
(a) With the intent to secure a particular result in a particular matter involving the exercise of the public servant’s vote, opinion, judgment, exercise of discretion, or other action in his official capacity, he offers, confers, or agrees to confer any pecuniary benefit upon such public servant;

A bad trip down memory lane for YLB: Every day since the dawn of time, and about 36000 times per day, Rabbit reminds us that Klake is a Nazi, that Republucans are Nazi pig fuckers, and that pig fuckers are Nazi Republicans.

So if we Republicans can smile smile smile after reading the N-word, Nazi, 36000 times a day, what’s your problem with an occasional C-word?

(Watch this space: Even Lee Harcey Oswald, advance guard of the New Left, was more than a silly little communist. He was at least as complicated and nuanced as Bill Ayers and ACORN.)

(M)uch of it could have been a preamble to the Constitution of Woodstock Nation. In these papers, he lays out “an Atheian [LHO was lysdixic] system, a system opposed to Communism, Socialism and capitalism.” He called for “Democracy at a local level with no centralized State,” and yet his anticapitalist manifesto insisted “That the right of free enterprise and collective enterprise be guaranteed.” He demanded “That heavy graduated taxes of from 30% to 90% be leveled against surplus profit gains,” but forbade the “nationalization or communizing of private enterprise or collective enterprise..” At times he seems just one recipe shy of an anarchists cookbook, demanding “That Fascism be abolished. That nationalism be excluded from ever-day life, That segregation or discrimination be abolished by law …”

Puddy decries the slush fund union dues. Many of Puddy family are union members who disagree with union direction.

They have a vote, but like the Republicans in 2008, they were obviously outvoted.

Puddy decries how union hack leaders party at a $400/night Miami Beach hotel and meet the Vice Preznit Gore behind closed doors while the rank and file are being laid off.

The union is not the rank and file’s employer. They do have a beef with the employer. Union representation is not a guarantee against being laid off in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. And union attempts to gain and maintain political clout benefits workers.

re 21: Typical wingnut approach. Mention both Afghanistan ANd Iran in your comment and then dun someone who replies to you by referencing the other country.

The point of the comment in 14 was the fear that Carter supposedly felt at the Russians invading Afghanistan.

Unless you think that he was afraid of all the Russians in Iran.

But, I’m glad you did bring up Iran and Khomeini. It gives me the opportunity to note that Carter engineered the release of the hostages while he was running for a second term, and Reagan surrepticiously, criminally, and unconstitutionally interfered with a sitting president’s foreign policy by offering arms to the Iranians if they would hang on to the hostages until after the election.

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on!

Reagan’s the terrorist. You can thank him for lengthening the hostages terror and imprisonment.

The Dems didn’t need to blow up this innocuous email into a scandal to prove they are clean. They are clean.

How do you know they are “clean” Goldy?
Assuming?
You know damn well the reason the Dems went Public with this is that SOMEONE gave it to the Seattle Times…who conveniently waited until Brown, Chopp & Gregoire could do “damage control”.
This is a farcical 3-act mini-drama with a lot of BAD ACTORS.
You are just an Extra Goldy…again.
A chump being used to try and downplay this.

So Goldy, would you be willing to support an investigation of past Union efforts to see if this happened before?
Where there is smoke, there is fire.

- Carter did indeed have a close encounter with reality and fear when militant expansionist imperialist Leonid invaded Afghanistan. That’s when Mr. Peanut jump-started an orgy of military spending, just as Truman had done c. 1949. If hapless diptards like Truman and Carter could get a clue, why can’t you?
– Dave Ross, lefty little Mercer Island elitist proletarian, said yesterday that we need newspapers as an ‘arbitor’ to tell us what is news. As if we’d never have guessed, without the P-I’s objective down-the-middle arbitration, that Big Labor uses Big Bucks to buy Big Democrats. (Arbitor? Isn’t that why we have Rush & Drudge?)
–

For more than two centuries, newspapers have been the indispensable source of public information, and a check on the abuses of government and other powerful interests.

That’s the Jayson Blair Times, today, giving a big wet French kiss (i.e. Freedom kiss) to the Jayson Blair Times and the P-I. But maybe we need a check on the depradations of the Times and P-I, and maybe that’s what the current dead-tree massacre is all about.
– Unusual earmark honesty from the Jayson Blair Times, today:

In the morning, President Obama stepped before cameras on Wednesday to call on Congress to impose new rules curbing pet spending projects. In the afternoon, he signed a $410 billion package jammed with pet spending projects, this time with no cameras to record the moment.

– Incredibility Gap: Next to the story about no-earmark Obama signing 8000+ earmarks into law, is a story about no-signing-statement Obama signing his first signing statement for the earmark pig sausage bill.
– Krauthammer, last summer, itemized Flip Flop Obama’s 180-degree flops, so many that Senator Hope&Change was sounding like Chimpface Bush’s third term … no subliminable simian slander of President Obama intended. But Obama’s flip flops on almost everything since Inauguration Day make him look like Jimmy Carter’s second term.
– Rabbit’s pig fucking … worse than you thought:

(W)e raised pigs for a time, including a sow named Brunhilda with such a strong personality that I remember her better than some of my high school dates.

That’s Kristoff, today, with confessions of teenage bestiality. The surprise is that he had other dates. The article is about MRSA.
– Speaking of diseased pigs, please tell YLB that ‘transmorgrify’ is not a word. The word, as every Calvinist & Hobbesian knows, is transmogrify.

Almost forgot: Even “News”week, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democrat Party, had the honesty to admit that sick Gary Sick’s confection about an October 1980 surprise — Reagan sending old Bush to prolong the hostage crisis — was a vicious lie. If even “News”week can simulate honesty, why can’t you?

Petro lifeline: The USSR had been leering a sensual lustful leer at Iran since about August 1945. That’s why Kim Roosevelt, commie TR’s heroic grandson, did us a mighty favor in 1954 by firmly nudging Iran onto our side of the iron curtain. Too bad Carter fucked it up in 1978-1980. We’re still paying for Carter’s inordinate stupidity, stupes.

Thought you libtards ‘despise’ the military, isn’t that the word Clinton or Clinton used when the twofers moved into power? So now it’s safe for you tards to go back in the water and pull up drowned rat Carter as an exemplar of military intelligence?

(And isn’t ‘military intelligence’ an oxymoron, moron? Isn’t that what you leftists giggle about among yourselves?)

Carter was a fool and a failure. RayGun saved us from Carter. End of story.

The US has screwed up miserably in the Middle East. What we need to do is totally re-think our policies vis-a-vis Islam and the Middle East. One of the reasons the Shah of Iran was kicked out of Iran was the return to fundamentalist Islam. Let’s just put it on the table: the followers of Islam hate the West, particularly the US. The best thing we can do is to declare neutrality, stop supporting Israel, and deal with everyone from the area with an arm’s length attitude. We need to extricate ourselves from this religious war. We have no dog in the fight between Jews and Muslims for the land that currently is called “Israel.”

What follows is the letter from the managing partner of the firm who ran attack ads in connection with the asbestosis bill:

My dear colleagues:

Over 90 years ago, my intellectual hero Max Weber wrote that effective leadership requires both passion and perspective.

For the past nine years I have led this law firm through good times and bad, my vision and passion balanced by David’s wisdom and perspective.

While at times intemperate and imperious, my leadership transformed our organization from a respected regional law firm into a national player in asbestos litigation. Our reputation for integrity, dedication to our clients and legal innovation is second to none. We have achieved amazing results for our clients, financial prosperity for our families and provided a generous and humane workplace for our employees. We have much to be proud of at our firm!

Recent events in Olympia have given me reason to doubt my leadership. It is not so much the content of my decision to run the ads (I’ve made mistakes before) or the result of the decision but rather the manner in which the decision was made.

I am distressed that a course of action as significant as attacking Democratic senators in the midst of the most stressful legislative session in a decade was made in haste with so little deliberation, consultation and foresight. While effective leadership requires a considerable level of self-certainty – not to mention a little bravado – this passion must be tempered with perspective and prudence. Up until now, every significant mistake I made in my career resulted from not trusting my initial instincts and ignoring the blinking yellow light urging caution. What worries me more than anything is that in this instance my intuition failed me altogether. It was not a question of ignoring my instincts or driving past the blinking yellow light, but rather that my instincts were missing in action.

Perhaps my loss of acuity resulted from ongoing grief over the loss in Arnold; perhaps I was distracted by my newfound interests in venture capitalism and international philanthropy or perhaps I’m just burned out after 12 years of holding the hands with dying mesothelioma victims.

In any case, I no longer believe I am the best person to lead Bergman, Draper & Frockt through the challenging times ahead and therefore cede the mantle of leadership to my dear friend and trusted partner Glenn. This decision is mine alone. I believe it is the best course of action for both the firm and our clients.

When I return from Kenya, I look forward to re-joining my friends and colleagues and resuming the good fight on behalf of the clients we are privileged to represent.

Until then, you have my unyielding affection and admiration.

See you soon

Matt

This labor letter was no less off the mark. Let us hope that the community of advocates are where needed, re-learning the rules of opperation here in Olympia. No one needs these distractions.

In the 2000-2004 election cycle, rich people gave the GOP $4 billion in campaign contributions and got back $400 billion in tax breaks, a 10,000% return on investment. That looks like a quid-pro-quo to me! If what the WSLC did was wrong, then it was also wrong for the rich people to get the $400 billion, and they should pay it back.

The rank and file are getting laid off. They have to tighten their belts. What do the union hacks do? Union hack leaders party and spend lavishly at a $400/night Miami Beach hotel. Where is their belt tightening?

Quite frankly, I’m with Goldy. None of labor’s actions in support of the bill killed it. I know what those actions were. Another explanation is required.
Quite frankly, I’ve been subjected to some of the behaviors the Act prohibits and if Gregoire axes the Worker Privacy Act, I will vote for, volunteer for, and contribute to any Primary Challenger who goes toe to toe with her. So there’s my “threat.”

Quite frankly, I’m with Goldy. None of labor’s actions in support of the bill killed it. I know what those actions were. Another explanation is required.
Quite frankly, I’ve been subjected to some of the behaviors the Act prohibits and if Gregoire axes the Worker Privacy Act, I will vote for, volunteer for, and contribute to any Primary Challenger who goes toe to toe with her. So there’s my “threat.”

New Jersey’s Democratic Governor Jon S. Corzine, who hopes to win a second term in November, has now fallen behind Republican challenger Christopher J. Christie by 15 points – 49% to 34%. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of voters in the state shows that seven percent (7%) prefer some other candidate, and 10% are undecided.

Corzine trails another potential GOP challenger, former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, 43% to 35%, while seven percent (7%) like another candidate and 15% are not sure whom they prefer. New Jersey Republicans will chose a candidate to run against Corzine in a primary on June 2.

The survey was taken Tuesday, the day Corzine was announcing $916 million in new and increased taxes as part of his $29.8 billion state budget for 2010.

62
If labor had “bought” Gregoire, veiled threats would be unnecessary. Labor would simply tell her what to do, much like the oil and gas industry told the Cheney/Bush Administration what to do. Goldy is most certainly right on this one. We’re seeing much ado about nothing. In a Republican administration, where ethical standards are absent, something like this nothing of a scandal would never have come to light. Could any of you righties out there actually cite an RCW that the email comes close to violating?

@61: Yeah, that has worked so well for the GOP as they have lost the House, the Senate and teh Presidency and more governors…..and by the way, the big spenders and the record deficits have been on the GOP watch.

Just as the GOP set the record for earmarks when they came into power in congress and then again when 41 or 43 republican Senators who spoke out against earmarks had their own earmarks in the bill that they will gleefully accept.

Yup – republicans claimed to be for fiscal responsibility but they never gave any oversight to the no-bid contracts in Iraq or the over 1 trillion wasted there.

Republicans claim to be anti-terrorist, but they never pushed Bush to actually go after bin laden and made no fuss when Bush said bin laden was not important.

Republicans make a lot of “claims” but watch what they do. They claim to be against abortion, but they supported Abramoff in the Northern Marianas, where the workers had forced abortions (I guess that could be considered consistent – I mean, it is still anti-choice).

Unlawful exaction of money or property through intimidation or undue exercise of authority. It may include threats of physical harm, criminal prosecution, or public exposure. Some forms of threat, especially those made in writing, are occasionally singled out for separate statutory treatment as blackmail.

extortion, in law, unlawful demanding or receiving by an officer, in his official capacity, of any property or money not legally due to him. Examples include requesting and accepting fees in excess of those allowed to him by statute or arresting a person and, with corrupt motives, demanding money or property unlawfully under pretense of duty. The taking of money or property is generally an essential element of the crime. In most states of the United States, extortion is more widely defined to include the obtaining of money or property of another by inducing his consent through wrongful use of fear, force, or authority of office; blackmail, ransom, and threat of force are included under this definition.

Extortion, outwresting, or exaction is a criminal offense, which occurs, when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion. Refraining from doing harm is sometimes euphemistically called protection. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime groups. The actual obtainment of money or property is not required to commit the offense. Making a threat of violence or a lawsuit which refers to a requirement of a payment of money or property to halt future violence or lawsuit is sufficient to commit the offense. Exaction refers not only to extortion or the unlawful demanding and obtaining of something through force,[1] additionally, exact in its formal definition means the infliction of something such as pain and suffering or to make somebody endure something unpleasant.[2]

In the United States, extortion may also be committed as a federal crime across a computer system, phone, by mail or in using any instrument of “interstate commerce.” Extortion requires that the individual sent the message “willingly” and “knowingly” as elements of the crime. The message only has to be sent (but does not have to reach the intended recipient) to commit the crime of extortion.

Extortion is distinguished from blackmail. In blackmail, the blackmailer threatens to do something which would be legal or normally allowed.

Extortion is distinguished from robbery. In “strong arm” robbery, the offender takes goods from the victim with use of immediate force. In “robbery” goods are taken or an attempt is made to take the goods against the will of another—with or without force. A bank robbery or extortion of a bank can be committed by a letter handed by the criminal to the teller. In extortion, the victim is threatened to hand over goods, or else damage to their reputation or other harm or violence against them may occur. Under federal law extortion can be committed with or without the use of force and with or without the use of a weapon. A key difference is that extortion always involves a written or verbal threat whereas robbery can occur without any verbal or written threat (refer to U.S.C. 875 and U.S.C. 876).

The term extortion is often used metaphorically to refer to usury or to price-gouging, though neither is legally considered extortion. But extortion sometimes lead to more dangerous illicit activities which raises concerns with law enforcement agencies. It is also often used loosely to refer to everyday situations where one person feels indebted against their will, to another, in order to receive an essential service or avoid legal consequences. For example, certain lawsuits, fees for services such as banking, automobile insurance, gasoline prices, and even taxation, have all been labeled “legalized extortion” by people with various social or political beliefs.

Why is it okay for businesses, large and small alike, non-profits like the NRA, NARAL, etc., to discuss their frustrations with any and all elected officials, talk about their strategies when it comes to spending their PAC monies, but all of a sudden it’s against the law for the WSLC to talk with it’s members and associates about their total frustration with the state legislature, their lack of candor over the WPA? Why is it that the WSLC can’t discuss their political strategies amongst themselves? And somewhere in this mix, it’s forgotten that those labor dollars for campaigns are not dues dollars, but dollars contributed by individual union members to their local’s PAC/COPE accounts. There is no cohersion, no arm twisting, no closed door meetings demanding contributions or telling members who they’re going to support (in contrast to the meetings the WPA was trying to save workers from). When it comes to deciding the legislative agenda for any labor union, it’s done at the membership meetings, meetings open to every member. And if it’s done at a legislative committee or exec board meeting, it’s the elected representatives and officers of that local, elected by the members, who make decisions… much like our legislature suggests bills and decides which ones become laws. There is no ‘big’ labor, there are 100’s of thousands of individual members were come together to form a union to collectively have a louder, stronger voice… to pool their resources to be noticed, acknowledged, listened to… size does matter and unfortunately money talks… corporations have access to far more money than any labor union, and the power of the labor movement is in it’s membership, the feet on the street, those folks calling other members reminding them to vote and to vote as though their jobs, their lives depended upon that one action.
So, when the WSP does their investigation and if they find that the WSLC was in violation of the law, then they’ll need to build a whole lot of jails because each and everyone of us who has ever contributed to a candidate’s campaign or volunteered for one will be guilty of the same offense. We tie our support to the support we have received or will receive from those we elected to represent us.

Let’s get real and talk about the real bread and butter issues that are effecting people in this state. WPA was about job security, and lest you think folks were protected from this type of activity in the first place, ask a few former employees of Wal-Mart, Starbucks, the permatemps at Microsoft and Amazon what happens when they don’t attend those captive audience meetings or if they want to talk about their affiliations. They’re not protected and remedy thru the courts is a slow, expensive and starvation prone process.

@65,
extortion would involve the Rob McKenna communicating with the BIAW a threat that if they do not give his campaign $100,000 he will launch and investigation into their illegal political activities.

On the other hand, if BIAW members discuss among themselves that if Rob McKenna launches a criminal investigation into their illegal political activity they shouldn’t give any more money to his campaigns, that would be entirely unremarkable.

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